The Boy Who Never Grew Up
by dimpleforyourthoughts
Summary: AHBL companion fic from Dean's POV, spoilers till 2x21. "When Dean was ten years old, before he decided that school was stupid and girls were pretty, he read Sammy Peter Pan."


**Author's Note: One of the very first things I wrote for the supernatural fandom, spoilers for up to AHBL. Basically Dean's POV of Sam's death, with a few flashbacks and twists along the way. Please read and review!**

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When Dean was ten years old, before he decided that school was stupid and girls were pretty, he read Sammy _Peter Pan._ It was over the summer, between countless road-signs and hotels and wayward towns on the highway, and Dean had stolen the book from the library because Sammy had liked the illustrations. They spent the entire summer reading that book, curled up together in the back of the Impala as John drove. Sammy would sit on Dean's lap and Dean would buckle them both under the same seatbelt. John would turn down the music with a grudging chuckle, and Dean would read softly to Sammy, letting his little brother turn the pages and look at the pictures as Dean stumbled over the big words and proudly recited the familiar ones. And Sam _loved _it.

Sam loved that book so damn much, he had Dean read it again and again as the mile markers flew by and the days stretched into weeks. He loved it so much that half way through the summer Sam told Dean that he wanted to be just like Peter Pan. He wanted to fly away and live on an island with pirates and Indians and mermaids and he wanted to never grow up. Dean didn't have the heart to tell Sam that that would never happen. That the only magic that existed in the world was hex bags and blood oaths and Latin curses. He too, didn't want Sammy to have to grow up. So Dean let Sam dog ear his favorite pages, and he re-read his certain chapters whenever Sammy had nightmares and couldn't go back to sleep. John hadn't objected to Sammy's absolute adoration of Peter Pan, had even smiled when Sam took to carrying around an old beer bottle filled with dirt that he called 'pixie dust'. It was fun and games. It was summer. It was a toothy little five year old who loved a book and his big brother and the car that combined the two. It was not a big deal.

At least, it wasn't a big deal until Sam jumped off a pile of cars in Bobby's Salvage yard. Dean had been standing about twenty feet away, sulking because Dad hadn't let him come along with him to go check out a case and kicking his feet petulantly in the dust. Sammy had just moments before been tagging along with Dean, but now he was somehow on top of a pile of cars with his arms spread wide, and grinning at Dean and looking happy, so damn happy to see Dean as he shouted "Look Dean! _Dean_! I'm Peter Pan! I can fly!"

And then Sam had jumped.

The sensation that hit Dean's gut was something that had stuck with him his whole life. He had watched, screamed, ran, as his little brother plummeted a good ten or fifteen feet to the ground. In retrospect, Dean wasn't sure what he would have done if he had gotten there on time. Caught Sam? Not likely. And yet ten year old Dean was running and screaming "Sam! No!" as he watched his little brother fall to the earth and land with a sickening crack.

It felt in that moment like Dean was falling with Sam. Like somehow that summer spent in the car pressed against the warm leather seat and the worn pages of a book had somehow taken their souls and melded them into one. What hit one of them, hit the other. They had somehow spent the summer so tangled that Dean wouldn't be surprised if you cut one, the other would bleed. Sam fell, and Dean fell with him.

And that falling sensation, that utter liquefying of his every cell in pure and utter terror, never really left Dean Winchester's mind. Even though Sam was okay in the end. Even though he had only broken his ankle and busted his lip. Even though Dean was sure Sam didn't remember that stupid jump off the car pile. Even if that was the day that Dean tossed that wear-n-tear edition of _Peter Pan _into the fireplace and told Sam he lost it. Dean never forgot what it felt like to fall as Sam fell, to feel every bit of what Sam felt throughout the nooks and crannies of his heart.

He didn't catch Sam. Sam fell and Dean couldn't catch him.

It's different this time.

This time around he gets there in time to catch Sam. But this time around Sam isn't five years old and pulling some kamikaze stunt. This time there's no familiar salvage yard or warm summer sunshine. There's no wail of pain that comes from his little brother as he falls to his knees. Only a stunned grunt, a soft, surprised gasp for air, and Dean's there. Dean's got him. Dean's not letting go.

Dean catches Sam. But for the second time he fails to save him.

The falling sensation isn't falling this time. It's bleeding. There's mud on Dean Winchester's jeans and blood on his hands and it's not his. It's Sam's blood, all Sam's blood. But maybe it is Dean's blood too, after all.

There's blood on Dean Winchester's hands and for the first time in sixteen years he's shaking and crying and he feels so tired. He hears Bobby running and thunder rolling in the distance and Sam is fading and Dean feels like he's already halfway gone, too.

Dean can do nothing but grip his little brother. Grip him and lie lie lie about how Sammy's gonna be okay, about how everything's gonna be okay, how Dean is going to take care of his pain in the ass little brother because that's his job and nothing else matters because if Sam….if he…

He closes his eyes, cups the back of Sam's head, and cradles it like he did from the first day he held Sam as a baby.

There's a plethora of fleeting images flashing behind Dean's closed eyes and all he can think of is how Sam was okay the first time he fell, the first time he tried to fly, the first time he did something crazy and stupid and adventurous without Dean to watch his every step. Sure, he was a little worse for wear, but in the end he was fine. Sam was fine then and he would be fine now. He _would_.

But Sam's lips are shaping around his last words at his brother's ear, and Dean recognizes the muted 'D' sound. Sam Winchester fades away and the last thing, the last recognizable thing he can cling to as he kneels in the mud covered in his blood, _their blood_, is the sound of his older brother's name.

Sam Winchester dies. Dean screams and screams his name and grips him even tighter as if to crawl into his skin, as if to breathe some life back into him. Sammy dies and his older brother feels something crack in his chest, like the main cog of a clock simply ceasing to move.

There's no reprieve from the endless horror of this moment, of the sickening irony that sets into Dean's bones like poison.

There's just Dean Winchester, holding the broken and bruised body of his brother Sam:

The boy who would never grow up.

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**Again, please r&R!**


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